I have a python script that runs on my pc, monitors web data and occasionally prints an alert. I would like to feed this string to alexa so the alert is announced on all my echo devices. How can I accomplish this?
I know Alexa can accept text because I can type in text via the Alexa android app and have it announced on all my echo devices. I need a way to send text from python scripts to the alexa app and trigger an announcement.
This video at 5:20 (https://youtu.be/UEPt3edhwc0?t=318) shows Echo announcing custom text via Home Assistant, I would like to do this via Python instead. Fortunately Home Assistant uses two python packages, AlexaPy and alexa_media_player, to accomplish this.
AlexaPy (https://alexapy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/alexapy/alexapy.html#submodules) has exactly what I need, a send_announcment method that would allow an echo device to announce text ("this is a test") via the following code snippet.
echo_device = alexapy.AlexaAPI(device, alexa_login) # stuck here
await echo_device.send_announcment(message='this is a test')
I can create the alexa_login object and confirm it works with the following code:
import asyncio
import alexapy
url = 'amazon.com'
name = 'amazon_login_name'
password = 'amazon_password'
def fun_outputpath(file: str):
return file
async def connect():
alexa_login = alexapy.AlexaLogin(url, name, password, fun_outputpath)
await alexa_login.login()
is_connected = await alexa_login.test_loggedin()
if is_connected:
print("Connected")
print(alexa_login.customer_id)
print(alexa_login.email)
print(alexa_login.password)
else:
print("Not connected")
await alexa_login.close()
def main():
asyncio.run(connect())
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
However I cannot figure out what argument to pass as the "device" parameter. Looking through the AlexaPy code shows that device expects a AlexaClient instance.
class AlexaAPI:
# pylint: disable=too-many-public-methods
"""Class for accessing a specific Alexa device using rest API.
Args:
device (AlexaClient): Instance of an AlexaClient to access
login (AlexaLogin): Successfully logged in AlexaLogin
"""
devices: dict[str, Any] = {}
wake_words: dict[str, Any] = {}
_sequence_queue: dict[Any, list[dict[Any, Any]]] = {}
_sequence_lock: dict[Any, asyncio.Lock] = {}
def __init__(self, device, login: AlexaLogin):
"""Initialize Alexa device."""
self._device = device
The AlexaClient Class is defined in the alexa_media_player python package (https://github.com/keatontaylor/alexa_media_player/blob/dev/custom_components/alexa_media/media_player.py):
class AlexaClient(MediaPlayerDevice, AlexaMedia):
"""Representation of a Alexa device."""
def __init__(self, device, login, second_account_index=0):
"""Initialize the Alexa device."""
super().__init__(self, login)
# Logged in info
self._authenticated = None
self._can_access_prime_music = None
self._customer_email = None
self._customer_id = None
self._customer_name = None
# Device info
self._device = device
I feel I am close to a solution but I need some help figuring out the best way to create a AlexaClient object to pass as an argument to the "device" parameter.